Panel Problems and RPMs

[Sean Middleditch <sean middleditch iname com>]

 I have some problems with the gnome panel I'd to fix.

 The first is that sometimes when I click on a gnome panel a dialog comes up
telling me another gnome panel is running, and if I want to start a new one? 
No matter what choice I click (yes/no) all my panels dissappear.  Since the
only way I can find to create new panels is right-clicking on an existing panel
(if this is true, it really should be fixed), the only way I can fix the
problem is by deleting my ~/.gnome directory so gnome starts up with its
default configuration (this is not a good thing).

 Also, I have a problem in which gnome sometimes seems to keep a few panel
configurations at once.  When I start gnome, it uses one configuration.  The
next time I start gnome, the panel is configured in a way I had it a few days
before.  It switches back and forth.  Right now it isn't doing that, though, so
I don't know what causes it.

 Finally, for the gnome panel, sometimes applets or launchers aren't on my
panel as they should be when I start gnome.  For example, this particular
session the mixer applet I have on the top panel wasn't there and I had to add
it back in.

 I also wanted to know where I could get RPMs of the most current gnome
release.  Most of my RPMs are a bit outdated (by a month or more), and I can't
find any up-to-date RPMs anywhere.  Most of the big ftp sites have older RPMs
of gnome than I do.  I'd prefer to use RPMs over tar.gz files and such, but if
there are no RPMs, I guess I'll have to get the tarred files, eh?

Thanks,
Sean Middleditch